Good morning Montreal! So nice to be SO FOGGED in! I hope this fog does not last! We had a great QUIET night at the YUL Marriott hotel and are ready to face the day! First stop – breakfast! Second stop – the 747 (aptly named) bus into the city! Third stop – Gluten Free Heaven!
Now we have found, taken and gotten off the 747 bus to downtown Montreal – quite an experience! Where we happened to get off was actually Chinatown, which lasted 2 blocks – so we saw the gate going in and out! Beautiful murals on buildings too! We were walking towards Old Montreal however there was a LOT of construction to get past! All of a sudden the bells started ringing on a church nearby which I saw was Notre Dame so we went over to see what was going on – it was a wedding! Then we arrived at the piece de resistance! Le Marquis Bakery – a gluten free bakery that I have heard a TON about and it did not disappoint! Only issue? 3 stairs out front. Well, I was desperate for some GF goodness so up we went! The chef in the bakery took one look at me and said “you must be celiac as we do not see many people with (french for wheelchairs) in here”! I agreed with him! He made me a spinach crepe – best I have ever had and I bought some goodies to take on the trip with me. Then, due to time, we caught a taxi back to the airport.
Now we got back to the airport all safe and sound, and we packed, I sent a care package of my summer type clothes to my parents to lessen the load going to Ireland (read: so Lynda can buy wool) and we went and checked in! The Montreal Airport is not as big as the Vancouver Airport when it comes to gate areas, however it still is spread out – similar to YVR. The only difference is they do Transborder/USA check-in at one end of the airport and then Domestic/International at the other end. Then once we went through the Domestic/International security, we walked along the Domestic (very busy) part of the terminal and then had to show our boarding cards to get into the International part of the terminal. I noticed that people could go back and forth though, where they cannot at YVR. We ended up in the Air Canada Lounge, which was nice – there were about 50 people in line for the lounge at that time, however they let people with disabilities jump the queue it seems (or that is what I was told). Nice lounge – we got to relax for about 90 minutes prior to boarding our flight to Dublin. As it was night, I do not have many pictures from that period of time, it was pitch black outside! My dinner meal was beef (first time in decades I have gotten beef instead of chicken) and then for the GFML for dessert it is always fruit, so I pulled out my bakery items and ate my fruit first and then placed the raspberry/strawberry galette dessert in my bowl and enjoyed my “meal”!
Now it is time to get flat on the flight! See you in a couple of hours! This is only a 6 hour flight to Dublin!